


Doing Time

by RileyC



Series: Doing Time 'verse [1]
Category: Oz - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M, Post-Canon, Romance, do-overs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-10
Updated: 2010-06-10
Packaged: 2017-10-10 01:22:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/93663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you had the chance to step sideways into a new life, would you do it? That's the question Toby finds himself pondering one night, when he pops into a strange little shop to get out the rain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doing Time

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by Callmerizzo, who also pretty much rescued the story, period.
> 
> Also, there are two alternate endings.

Running to catch his bus, Tobias Beecher made it to the curb just in time to watch it pull away without him -- splashing him with dirty rainwater, just to make it extra special. He let out a frustrated huff, staring after the retreating taillights as the cold rain continued to pelt down.

Could there be a more appropriate finale to the day? he thought, just as thunder rumbled and lightning cracked the sky, and the freezing drops of rain turned into icy pellets of hail, hitting the pavement and piling up in the gutter like snow, putting dents in cars and cracking windshields, and driving him back to huddle in the scant shelter of the buildings to keep from getting battered.

Yep, it was one of those days.

There had been a lot of those lately.

Six months out of prison, and yet he still didn’t feel free. Six months, and the only time he had truly felt alive had been when he had given into a crazy impulse and gone out to look at Oz.

Those last couple of years at Lardner had barely touched him. He hadn’t let them. He had kept to himself, minded his own business, and walked out with nothing but beige-colored memories of the place. It had made no impact on him.

Oz, though -- his memories of Oz would always be in shades of red.

He had stood a long time on the roadside just looking at it, dark and abandoned. Everything had looked rusted and worn, the yard filled with weeds, windows broken out and left that way. Because who was left to escape? No one walked those dark corridors anymore, no one alive -- but he’d had to struggle mightily not to give into the urge to climb the fence, go inside and see. If he had, would he have heard the ghostly echoes of long-gone voices? Would he have caught a glimpse of shadowy figures out of the corner of his eye? Or would it just be an empty shell, nothing left to mark all the men who had passed through its hallways, all the lives that had been so brutally, suddenly cut short there?

Would he have seen Chris, leaning back against the wall, that cocky smirk on his handsome face, mocking him and loving him all at the same time?

He hadn’t dared to risk it, and couldn’t say now if he had been more afraid of finding ghosts, or discovering everything there had come and gone and left not a single trace behind.

Shivering, hugging himself against it, Toby scanned up and down the street, spotting the soft neon glow of a bar and feeling a powerful tug toward it. It was just the offer of shelter, that was all. He could duck in there out of the storm, wait for the next bus to come along, no harm done. It wasn’t like bottles of booze were going to fling themselves at him, demanding, _“Drink me! Drink me!”_

There weren’t many other options, after all, he decided, starting towards the sign, ducking back for a moment as a volley of hail seemed to be aimed straight at him, the pellets of frozen rain stinging hard enough to bruise. Most of the stores along here were closed for the night, the temperature was dropping to hypothermic levels -- and he stumbled and slipped on the icy sidewalk, reaching out to catch himself against a door that gave under his weight.

Sprawling out on clean, shiny linoleum, the bell above the door jangling loud enough to wake the dead, Toby raised himself up on knees and elbows just in time to see the door _swoosh_ shut again -- and to catch its name, painted onto the glass: **Timekeepers.**

Hmm. Had this place always been here? He had been walking past here, twice a day for the past three months, and couldn’t recall ever having noticed it. Of course, his mind had mostly been on getting to his job on time, with no inclination to dawdle and drink in the just-scraping-by, its-best-days-were-long-behind-it part of town.

Expecting some irate shop owner to come along any moment and demand to know what the hell he was doing there, Toby got back on his feet and looked around at the vast array of timepieces -- antique grandfather clocks to digital alarm clocks and everything in between, right down to hourglasses and sundials to stick in your garden, and watches displayed in jewelry cases -- and guessed this was one of those specialty niche shops, catering to all of your timekeeping needs. He wouldn’t have thought there was a lot of money to be made in that, which could explain why the store was here, in the ass end of town, and not up on Main Street or over at the mall.

He peered out the window, saw no sign of another bus coming along, and no indication the storm would be letting up soon, and supposed this was as a good a place to wait it out as any. There wasn’t a **Closed** sign hung up, and the door had been open; he had every right to be here. And yes, he was likely being paranoid. Nine and a half years in a prison would do that.

The last thing he wanted on his mind was memories of Oz and Lardner, though, and he started looking around the shop as a means of distraction. It was a cozy, cluttered little place, no particular rhyme or reason to how most items were displayed, and he wondered if the somewhat dim lighting was to keep electric bills low or discourage a too-close inspection of “antique” items.

He also wondered how long it took before the constant _tick-tock_ drove you batty. Or maybe that was something you simply got used to in time. It was amazing how adaptable people could be, to the point where things one would have never previously accepted could seem utterly commonplace. He could write a book about that.

Pausing before one particularly fine grandfather clock, he reached out to touch it, fingers caressing the warm wood as its pendulum swung back and forth. Leaning closer to study the carvings that surrounded the clock face, he had to smile at the depiction of a mouse scurrying as if frantic to make some appointment, and then a vague horror struck him as he heard himself speaking aloud:

“Hickory dickory dock  
The mouse ran up the clock  
The clock struck one--”

Jesus.

The child’s rhyme had popped into his head out of nowhere, and he looked around to see if anyone had noticed, feeling all the more ridiculous because of course there was no one else there, no one to take note of the slip and go, _“Uh-oh -- watch out! Crazy Rhyming Beecher’s on the loose again!”_

Who the fuck else in the world would ever freak out over reciting a children’s nursery rhyme?

He shook his head in comical despair, grateful he could find at least a scintilla of humor in that. That had to be a good sign, right? And God knew he could use one.

That was bumping dangerously close to all those things he didn’t let himself think about, and he searched around for a distraction, leaning over a jewelry case to check out a selection of pocket watches on display, nearly jumping out of his skin as a chorus of strident _cuckoo-cuckoo, cuckoo-cuckoo_ broke out all around him.

Christ.

He straightened up, looking around at all the cuckoo clocks set up high, all popping in out and noisily informing him it was eight o’clock.

Oh fuck, no, it couldn’t be that late.

He checked his own watch to confirm it, only to find its battery must have conked out because the hands were stopped at a half past five.

A perplexed look out a plate-glass window could only confirm that the street outside was entirely dark and deserted, not a soul, not a vehicle in sight, and hail -- or was it sleet now? -- still coming down like the end of the world.

“Oh!” a surprised voice cried out, and he looked over to see a storeroom door open, and a man coming out, startled to see there was a potential customer at this hour but coming over with a friendly smile and welcoming manner. “I didn’t realize anyone had come in,” he said, bustling about as if afraid the shop needed some tidying up.

“I can see you have discerning taste,” he went on, behind the jewelry case now and lifting out the tray of pocket watches Toby had been looking at. “These are some particularly fine instruments. Would you like a closer examination?”

Adding embarrassment to his growing sense of bemusement seemed a small thing, and Toby said, “Well, actually, I was just getting out of the weather.”

“Ah, yes,” the man smiled and spared a glance outside. “The elements are certainly lively tonight, aren’t they?”

“That’s…one way to put it,” Toby said. And an odd one, at that.

He couldn’t quite determine the man’s age, but anywhere between seventy and a thousand seemed about reasonable. The guy was a good half a head shorter than him, with a mop of white hair and rather ferociously bushy eyebrows above twinkling blue eyes. Those eyebrows were the only ferocious aspect to the man who mostly put Toby in mind of a Keebler elf. Although he couldn’t tell if the guy’s ears were pointed. Even his costume of baggy gray pants, loose vest, and ill-fitting coat went towards an otherworldly air, as if he’d ransacked some ancient closet from a hundred years ago.

“Perhaps this?” the man held out a particularly ornate silver watch. “There’s a bit of tarnish,” he smiled apologetically and scrubbed at the dark spot on the cover with a threadbare handkerchief, “but that’s easily put right. Have a look, please.”

Not knowing what else to do, Toby took it from him, balancing the weight of it in the palm of his hand. “How old?” he asked.

“Oh, that one’s been around awhile. Knocked about a bit -- you can see the nicks and scratches here and there,” he obligingly pointed them out, “but I always think that sort of thing adds a bit of character. Don’t you agree?”

“I…suppose.” If it did, he was fucking overflowing with captivating qualities. “How much?” he asked, knowing he needed this beat-up old watch like he needed to break parole and go back to prison, but the old shopkeeper’s salesmanship was hard to resist.

“Live with it a bit; we can negotiate a price later,” the shopkeeper said, and Toby bet this was about when a warning _ding-ding-ding_ bell should have been going off in his head. “There’s no hurry, is there?”

Toby sighed, looking at the watch, admiring the way it caught the light and gleamed with an echo of its lost grandeur. “No, no hurry,” he said softly, all too aware there was no one waiting for him.

He had an apartment that was only slightly less cramped and non-descript than his last cell at Lardner, and just as impersonal. He told himself that was only because it was temporary; he wouldn’t be staying there long, so where was the sense in making it comfortable. He had a job answering the phone and keeping files in order for a lowlife shyster who had probably gotten his law degree through the mail. But like the bastard told him, maybe he hadn’t gone to Harvard, but he’d also never ploughed his car into a little girl and gone to prison. Who could dispute his superiority?

With every day that dragged by, Toby skirted closer to accepting a bitter truth: that those four dour walls, this life of just getting one more day behind him, was all there would ever be.

He hated looking in mirrors because that truth stared bleakly back at him every time, the truth that he felt as defeated as he ever had, devoid of the smallest spark of hope.

True, there was plenty of money in the bank, if he wanted it. But for what? To live somewhere nicer, but just as barren?

All those years in prison, he had always believed that once he walked free of those walls everything would automatically revert to how it had been. He would have his life back, a better life because of what he had endured to earn it.

Only it hadn’t been there waiting for him, kept pristinely under glass until he could claim it again.

It had been shattered and trampled and there wasn’t any of it left. Even his kids -- Harry didn’t know him, and Holly didn’t want to. He could have fought Gen’s parents to keep them, but even his own brother hadn’t supported him. Could he guarantee he would not fuck up again? That’s what Angus, everyone, had asked him, and not a soul had believed his promises to try.

He gave the shopkeeper a bleak smile and asked him, “I don’t suppose you have anything in here that _back_ the hands of the clock?”

Head cocked to one side, the shopkeeper studied him thoughtfully. “If you could go back and change one moment in time, what would it be?”

Toby sighed, mind racing through so many images -- taking his first drink, killing Kathy Rockwell … Chris … and he shook his head. “It’s hopeless, there’s too many.” And what the hell did it say about him that, if he could simply relive one moment in time, it would be that New Year’s Eve so long ago, when he let himself love Chris?

“You know,” the shopkeeper said, “I once read a story -- what was it now? Oh well, it’ll come to me,” he muttered as if to himself. “It was about this man who discovered that this world we live in is only one of many, and there are all these other alternate, parallel worlds existing side by side, with alternate versions of you and I going on about our lives, the lives we don’t get to experience because we went one way down a path and could never find our way back to the turning point. Anyway, this man in the story, he learned that, every now and then, when a wrong turn occurred in one of these worlds and an alternate self died, that another self could cross over and take up that life. Of course, there would be no going back. Once you leave one world, you can never return.”

Toby nodded, understanding; it was sort of like Billy Pilgrim, in _Slaughterhouse Five_, he supposed, popping in and out of time. “Did he cross over?”

“Ah, well, I’m afraid it ended a bit like _The Lady or the Tiger_, and the reader had to determine the ending for themselves. It’s an intriguing notion, though, don’t you think? Not _quite_ changing time, but sort of stepping through a doorway into a time that might have been.”

“Too bad that only happens in stories.”

“Yes,” the shopkeeper said, something enigmatic in his voice and smile. “We’re far too wise to believe in things like that,” he went on, an even more curious note of amusement in his manner now.

Yes, much too wise, Toby mused. But wouldn’t it be tempting? To have a chance at another life, one where you hadn’t fucked it all up. His mind whirled with the possibilities, all of them appealing. Because, you know, what could possibly go wrong? he wryly thought to himself.

“Now, though,” the shopkeeper shifted back into salesman mode, drawing his attention back from alluring visions of what if, “do please wind that old thing up so we can see if its mechanism still works.”

Suspecting he was going to wind up buying this old watch whether he wanted it or not, Toby grasped the stem and turned it, or tried to. “It’s stuck.”

“Try harder.”

“I break it, I buy it?”

“You won’t break it.”

Toby sighed again, rolled his eyes, and got a firmer grasp on the stem, exerting more effort, and finally getting it to move. The shopkeeper gave him an encouraging nod, so Toby kept turning, hearing the steady _tick tick tick_ start up, the watch vibrating just a bit in his hand. “Should it be doing that?”

A gleam of satisfaction in the old blue eyes, the shopkeeper nodded, “Oh yes, everything’s working as it should.” He smiled more broadly. “A bit like clockwork, I suppose you could say.”

“Uh-huh.” Why did the crazy stuff always happen to him? Was he some kind of magnet for it? “Well, I really should be going,” he said. “Looks like the weather’s clearing.”

“Yes, it is just about time,” the shopkeeper agreed, closing Toby’s fingers over the watch. “Have a good life,” he told him, something solemn and grave in his manner now.

Before Toby could even wonder why a complete stranger would wish him that, a gust of wind blew the door open, bringing a rush of icy pellets that struck the surfaces of the shop with a silvery, tinkling sound -- that made him raise an arm to shield his eyes, the world seeming to spin dizzily around him for a moment, and he felt himself falling, plummeting out of control down some abyss--

\--and then he was stretched out on his back in the street, the sun was beating down on him now instead of cold rain and hail, and people were clustered around. Sounds of traffic and a murmured chorus of questions and comments from the bystanders reached his ears, and he could just make out someone saying, “I’m not finding a pulse, think he’s a goner,” and with a tremendous force of will Toby struggled to sit up, breathing hard and looking around at astonished faces surrounding him.

“I’m okay,” he whispered, not sure exactly who he was reassuring.

“You sure as hell shouldn’t be,” said the man who’d been about to pronounce him dead. “Car smacked right into you,” he explained, illustrating by punching his fist into the palm of his hand.

Toby looked around. “What car?”

“Son of a bitch took off, didn’t get the plate. But man, it _hit_ you. I saw. We all did,” the man waved at the onlookers and got a confirmation of nods and murmured comments.

“It missed at the last second.”

“Man, you was dead. I couldn’t find a pulse.”

“Do I look dead?”

“Well…”

“I fainted, that’s all.” Sure, that was it.

“Well…” the guy said again, not satisfied, but apparently unable to come up with a counter position that would hold up. “You better be more careful crossing the street,” he added, being so gracious as to give Toby a hand up, something clattering on the pavement. “That yours?” the Good Samaritan asked, stooping to retrieve the pocket watch.

“It’s mine, actually,” said one of the bystanders, an elfin-looking gentleman with fierce eye brows, who snatched the watch up before anyone else could claim it and disappeared back into the crowd with no further explanation.

Toby shouted, “Hey! You!” and stumbled after him, but the man simply wasn’t there anymore. Toby would have sworn he sort of shimmered out of existence, there one moment and gone the next, but that was probably a trick of the light.

~*~  
His name was Tobias Beecher. He was forty-two years old. He practiced law. He lived at 27 Bryant Park. He still required corrective lenses, although thankfully his taste in eyewear seemed to have improved. He was single -- at least, he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring -- and bet he’d checked off the organ donation box on his driver’s licence. His wallet could probably divulge a lot more information, but he was afraid to look. What if there were pictures, for instance? Or … what if there weren’t?

He had been sitting a long time at the bar in the local watering hole he had taken refuge in, an assortment of keys and other items laid out on the dark, polished wood, studying them and thinking, and then thinking some more.

The cops had turned up and taken statements, but with Toby clearly demonstrating that he had come to no harm, the incident clearly was not going to be a high priority, and the bystanders had finally cleared off, the Good Samaritan still shaking his head and muttering, “Man, you was _dead_.”

Quite to the contrary, however, Toby couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so alive.

He reached for his glass -- club soda, because why play with fire? -- and thought about the story the old shopkeeper had told him, about the guy who stepped from his world into another, into a life he _could_ have lived but missed out on because somewhere, sometime, he’d turned left when he should have gone right.

Pretty wild. Pretty fucking _wow_.

If it was true, if it was real, if it wasn’t just that his last few marbles had finally deserted him.

His memories were his own, and yet there were other ones too, jumbled in amongst them. Quiet and distant, not obtrusive; sort of lingering in an old cardboard box shoved to the back of his mind, there if he wanted to claim any of them.

It scared the shit out of him.

So many possibilities were flooding his mind -- wonderful, terrifying, overwhelming possibilities that made him want to run around and scream and whoop, it was so much to contain.

There was, of course, one constructive course of action he could take, and he pondered those keys laid out against the wood once more.

They were his keys, that was his Harvard keychain. His fingers brushed over the car keys and he felt a combination of exhilaration and terror at that thought, that he could drive again. And here were his house keys, he realized, holding them so the metal glinted in the eyes.

What had the shopkeeper said, about the story being like _The Lady or the Tiger_, where you didn’t know for certain what waited behind a certain door, and could only take your best chance and cross your fingers?

An iffy proposition, true enough, and ordinarily he would advise against it. But what the fuck did he have to lose? How could anything be worse than the life he’d lived so far? And the _best_ that it could it be … he hardly dared think on that. The thoughts tumbled through his brain anyway. His children could be alive and whole and healthy. If he had married Genevieve in this world, they could have gone their separate ways with nothing worse between them than divorce. His parents could be expecting him to dinner tomorrow night. Chris … But he shied away from that one, afraid of asking for the moon.

Oh, man.

He leaned his elbows on the bar, head lowered into his hands for a moment as he let it all wash over him and through him, finding a calm spot of resolution in the midst of all the chaos in his mind.

He could do this. He wouldn’t get his hopes up, wouldn’t let them soar too high, but suddenly he had to know, had to discover what was and what could be.

Pushing back from the bar, Toby scooped up the items on the counter and slipped them back in his pocket, left the bartender a generous tip, and stepped out into the sunlight, eager to start opening doors.

And if some cosmic force out there had really decided to smile on him, maybe -- just maybe -- there wouldn’t be a tiger on the other side.


End file.
